


the path of no return

by beingevil



Category: Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu | Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Major Character Death, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 06:49:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17017800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beingevil/pseuds/beingevil
Summary: AU. Reuenthal is Death, and he is very, very interested in Yang Wen Li’s career.





	the path of no return

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bioticgrasp](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=bioticgrasp).



> Posted in honour of a significant Reuenthal-related date today. 
> 
> **Spoilers for (1) LOGH Book 1 (Dawn), (2) the entirety of Die Neue These (2018) Season 1, (3) OVA (corresponding timeline).**
> 
> I'm on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/beingevil/) if you want to talk LOGH.

Yang sees him for the first time when he is fifteen, at his father’s funeral.

It isn’t much of a funeral. There isn’t anything to consign into space, for one, nuclear-fusion furnace accidents don’t tend to leave much behind. But the most senior surviving crew member says a few words over a meagre collection of personal effects from the lost crew members, and there is a toast of sorts to their memories.

Yang, above all else, is tired, and grateful for the brevity of the ceremony.

As he is taking his leave to head back to the cabin that is now his alone, he becomes aware of a new presence at the outer edges of the ragtag crew.

There is a tall dark-haired young man dressed entirely in black, who is oddly unfamiliar – Yang has grown up amongst the starship’s crew for the last decade of his life, there is not a face here which he does not know.

Except this one.

Yang slows down to take a closer look, and is startled when he realises that the stranger is looking directly at him with the most startling mismatched eyes, the likes of which Yang has never seen.

The stranger’s penetrating gaze seems to look right through him.

A new crew member? Impossible – the accident was barely a day ago, no one would have had the time to consider, let alone hire, new shipmates.  

“Excuse me,” Yang says, surprised into speech. “Who are you?”

The stranger smiles at him.

“Hello, Yang,” he says, as if Yang has not spoken at all. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

The familiarity in his voice is perplexing. Yang is certain he has never seen this man before. There is no reason for him to be on this ship, let alone at the funeral.

He is just about to repeat his question when the stranger shakes his head almost imperceptibly. “There will be time enough for questions later, Yang,” he says, with that same unnerving familiarity. “I will be seeing you soon enough.”

Before Yang can say anything else, the stranger is gone.

Yang rubs his eyes, incredulous. He scans the huddled mourners – perhaps the stranger slipped back into the crowd or behind a pipe? But the faces are once again all familiar to him, and no trace remains of the stranger. None of the crew appears to have noticed anything amiss, either – there are no odd glances, no furtive looks. There is nothing to indicate that anything out of the ordinary has occurred.

He considers the possibility that exhaustion and grief has caused him to see things. Come to think of it, he cannot remember the last time he ate…

He takes himself off to the mess hall and forgets the stranger in a matter of days, snowed under by tax issues and the myriad intricacies of inheritance law.

Mere years later, the stranger keeps his promise.

* * *

 

Yang is twenty-one when Frederica passes him that ill-fated coffee cup on El Facil.

He looks up from his fit of coughing to see a strange but familiar face.

The stranger on his starship, from all those years ago, is mere feet away.

“Not just yet, Yang,” the stranger says. His mismatched eyes are laughing.  

Yang would ask him what he means, but he’s still busy coughing.

The stranger plucks the paper cup from his suddenly nerveless fingers. His fingers must have brushed Yang’s, but Yang cannot remember their touch. “Not yet,” he says, the words resonating oddly to Yang.

The stranger holds up Yang’s cup in a toast, as if his elegant fingers were wrapped around a crystal goblet instead of a standard military-issue paper cup.

“To your career,” he says, and he downs the rest of Yang’s drink, never taking his eyes off Yang.

A distinct sense of discomfort is starting to creep over Yang.

“I have to go,” the stranger says, almost regretfully, as he sets the cup down. “I am going to be very busy. Remember me, will you, Yang?” It’s not a request.

“Who are you?” Yang manages.

“I haven’t introduced myself? How remiss of me.” The stranger’s smile is like a knife in the darkness.

“You may call me Reuenthal.”

Then once again, the stranger – _Reuenthal_ – is gone.

Yang does not know how the stranger has accomplished this, materialising first in the middle of a wrecked starship and again, on this of all planets.

The evacuation of El Facil has certainly been stressful, but – has it caused his mind to waver?

A few cursory inquiries later prove to Yang that no one else has seen Reuenthal. There is no time to call up video feeds, and he is disinclined to do so, in any event – it is too much like giving in to the shadows that have begun to plague his mind.  

But the shadow of a doubt has begun to grow.

* * *

 

Jessica is past tears.

Yang is simply past feeling.

Jean is only one more lost life in the sea of one and a half million Alliance men and women lost in the gaping maw of Astarte.

As he turns to leave, there is Reuenthal, standing amongst the gravestones, tall and elegant. Strangely, he is in an Imperial officer’s uniform this time. His collar is a vivid slash of red against his throat, stark against his pale skin. 

“Hello, Yang,” he says, his voice like the wind amongst dark and hollow places. “I am sorry for your loss.”

“Are you?” Yang says, evenly.

Reuenthal inclines his head.

“I have no reason to lie to you, Yang.”

Yang is about to tell Reuenthal to leave, when Reuenthal extends slender, graceful fingers and touches Yang’s cheek.

Only the shock of the contact keeps Yang from flinching away. Reuenthal’s fingers are cold, like the wind off Heinessen.

Then Jessica passes him and Yang looks away to see her go.

When he looks back again, Reuenthal is gone.

* * *

 

After he takes Iserlohn, Reuenthal kisses him for the first time.

Schönkopf has left, leaving Yang the only one on the bridge.

Still reeling from all the needless death, he does not notice Reuenthal until long elegant fingers are tipping his chin up and his mouth is being claimed in a bruising kiss.

Yang’s muffled sound of half-protest is drowned out by Reuenthal’s mouth over his own, not so much stealing a kiss as seizing one.

Reuenthal’s kiss tastes like blood and cordite, and is over by the time Yang comes to his senses.

“You were magnificent,” Reuenthal says reverently.

His eyes are warm with praise.

This unreserved gratitude makes Yang uneasy in ways he can’t name.

“Thank you, Yang,” Reuenthal breathes.

For what, Yang wants to ask, but he is both afraid to know and possessed of the creeping suspicion that he already does.

* * *

 

Yang did not witness it himself, but even he cannot avoid the rumours of Andrew Fork’s breakdown.

He wonders if that will be him one day, then thinks that perhaps it would be for the better for him to be consigned to whatever institution has received Fork now, than to be responsible once again for yet more spilled blood.

Crushing his beret in his hands uneasily, he is almost grateful when he looks up to find that Reuenthal is at his side once again.

After Amritsar, months and ten million Alliance deaths later, Reuenthal kisses him again, long elegant fingers tangling possessively in his hair, mouth hungry in ways Yang cannot even begin to name.

Once again, he has a new uniform, Yang notices; a flowing Imperial admiral’s cape of the darkest black. Yang’s fingers involuntarily tangle in it and Reuenthal looks pleased. “Like that, do you?” He smiles approvingly at Yang.

But Yang has darker things on his mind, and he finally asks Reuenthal the question that has been lying under his tongue for years.

“Am I going insane?” he asks, quietly, in the space between them.

Reuenthal smiles. It is not comforting in the least.

“Perhaps,” he allows. “But it doesn’t mean that I’m not real.”


End file.
